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With so much parental pressure to return, as a "good wife" should, Ginder is caught in a trap of indecision. She feels that Ranjit may be worth another chance, especially as her son needs a father, but then the memories of abuse re-surface. The older folks, Asha (Lalita Ahmed) and Pushpa (Zohra Segal), simply fail to understand the situation, despairing of the moral rot that they seem to see around them. In their day the wife obeyed the husband absolutely, whatever her wishes (although Asha is having second thoughts on this front). Heaven knows what they'd make of Hashida (Sarita Khajuria), generally considered the prodigal daughter because she's set to become a doctor. Instead she's got a black boyfriend, Oliver (Mo Sesay), and has, this very day, discovered that she's pregnant.
Rounding out the tour party are Ladhu (Nisha Nayar) and Madhu (Renu Kochar), a pair of excitable and adolescent sisters who are on the hormone-driven prowl for seaside romance. Making their way onto the M6 for a trip of sand and surf, what they don't realise is that a number of people are in hot pursuit. Ranjit has been forced into trying to drag her back so, accompanied by his nice and nasty brothers, he follows. This is very much a face saving measure but it could so easily turn into something unpleasant. Also on the way is Oliver, brought to his senses by his father he'd now got thee near impossible task of tracking down Hashida and gaining her forgiveness. It looks as though Blackpool is in for a certain amount of conflict!
The most interesting facet of Bhaji on the Beach is that it deals with people who rarely get time on the silver screen - Asian women. As a growing segment of the British population, the cultural tenets and community standards of Asian families are important. Inevitably though there is change and confusion on many fronts (race, age and sex), where the ideals of the past crash into the pragmatism of the present. Bhaji on the Beach paints a balanced portrait of racism, attributing these qualities to members of all races alike (perhaps the major unifying factor). The shock is just how vitriolic and ingrained some of this bigoted attitudes are. However, the younger folk do tend to be more open (or right at the other end of the extreme and quite violent), which leads to fraught arguments with their elders, especially when the topic of marriage arises.
By feeling that she has to pack so many storylines into Bhaji on the Beach, Gurinder Chadha makes the mistake of not developing any of them fully. It's almost as if she felt that there was only one chance to make such a film and hence squashed everything in, and perhaps she's right. Nevertheless, with such a dense script, characters and motivation are inevitably sketchy. The cast do a reasonable job of sorting everything out, though none of them displays exceptional talent. What really helps is that they could all fit into the story in real-life, so that helps to cover most of the flaws. On the whole, Bhaji on the Beach is a moderately funny getting-to-know-each-other movie which covers a wide range of topics. It'll be interesting to see how Chadha handles her next film, when the pressure's less intense.
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